It was the day before the midsummer holidays, and the girls of the first
form were sitting together in the upstairs school-room at Milvern House,
discussing the events of the term, and the prospective pleasures of the
next few weeks. Lessons had been finished in the morning, the afternoon
had been given up to packing, and now they were enjoying a delightfully
unsupervised hour of rest.
A tall, slim girl was standing by the table, turning out the contents of
a desk, and filling the waste-paper basket with fragments of paper. The
other pupils watched the movements of the small hands, and the sleek,
dark head with unconscious fascination. There was something
delightfully trim and dainty about Bertha Faucit. Her hair was always
neat, her actions deliberate and graceful; she reminded one irresistibly
of a sleek, well-nurtured pigeon pluming its wings in the sunshine, with
a very happy sense of its own importance.
By the window stood another girl, who was evidently a sister, for she
wore a dress of the same pattern, and held herself with a like air of
dignified composure. Bertha and Lois Faucit were the daughters of a
dean who lived in an old cathedral town, and their school-fellows were
accustomed to account for every peculiarity on this score. "Dean's
daughters, you know!" It was ridiculous to expect that the children of
such a dignitary would indulge in pillow-fights, and bedroom supper,
like ordinary frivolous mortals.
Bertha was talking all the while she worked, dropping out her words with
the same delicate distinctness which characterised her actions.
"Picnics? Oh, dear me, yes! We have a picnic almost every week. We
take the pony carriage and carry our own provisions, and make a fire of
sticks. Have you ever tried to boil a kettle in the open air? It is a
terrible experience. First of all the wood is so damp that it won't
light, and you get all smoked and dirty; then when it does begin to
burn, and you put the kettle on the top, the whole thing collapses to
the ground, and you have to begin again from the beginning. You prop it
up with stones, and get everything started for the second time, and then
the others come back from laying the table and say, `What! isn't the
water boiling yet? Oh, you don't know how to light a fire! It is not
properly laid. Let me show you!' and down comes the whole thing again.
At the end of an hour the kettle boils, and the water is smoked! We
always use it to wash our hands, and drink milk instead. This year I
intend to use fire-lighters."
"We have a proper tea-basket for taking about with us," said one of the
other girls. "The kettle hangs over a lamp which is protected from the
draught, and you can have boiling water in ten minutes without any
trouble. We always take it when we go on the river. I like boating
picnics best of any."
"We go to the sea-side for the whole of the holidays," said Ella Bennet,
a big girl with rosy cheeks and long, brown hair; "Mother thinks the
bathing does us so much good. I learnt to swim last year. An old
fisherman rowed out in a boat. I had a strap fastened round my waist,
and he held me up with a pole while I went puffing round and round. He
tried to teach me to dive as well, but I was too nervous. One day I
vowed I really would try. I climbed on to the edge of the boat six
times over, while he held me, and showed me how to put out my hands, and
each time I began to squeal, and jumped down again at the last moment.
It was band day, so there were hundreds of people sitting on the shore,
and they roared with laughter. I was ashamed to come out of the van."
"I don't care about the sea-side. I like the country," said another
girl. "Last year we stayed at an old farmhouse in Derbyshire. The
walls are of oak, and there are secret cupboards on the stairs. There
is a legend that on moonlight nights one of the rooms is haunted by a
lady in white, who comes and sits by an old spinning-wheel. One evening
I dressed up in a sheet, powdered my hair, and blacked my eyebrows, then
I got the landlady to suggest to the others that they should go upstairs
and look for the ghost. They came up in a rush, and there I was
spinning away with my head bent down as solemn as a judge. They were
awfully quiet, but the boys crept nearer and nearer, and then pretended
to faint, and toppled right over me. Horrid things! It turned out that
the silly old woman thought they might be frightened, so she told them
who it was before they came up. I was so cross!"
"But they might really have been frightened. I wouldn't go upstairs to
see a ghost for a million pounds--not by myself, at least," said Nellie
Grey, the youngest girl in the form. "Of course it wouldn't be so bad
if you had your brothers with you. Brothers are great teases, but they
never get frightened themselves, so it is a comfort to have them
sometimes. My eldest brother is awfully brave. He wanted to be a
sailor, but Father wouldn't let him, so at Christmas he confided in us
one night that he was going to run away. He said good-bye, and divided
his things among us. I got the paint-box, and Minnie the desk, and Phil
the books and tool-chest. Next morning when we came down to breakfast,
there he was just the same as usual. He hadn't run away at all. He
said it was too cold. But we wouldn't give the things back. It's an
awfully nice paint-box, with a lovely big palette in a drawer
underneath. Mildred! how quiet you are! What are you going to do in
the holidays?"
The speaker turned to look at a girl who was seated on the edge of the
table itself, and everyone in the room followed her example with an
alacrity which showed how pleasant the sight was in their eyes.
Mildred Moore had just passed her fourteenth birthday, but she was so
big and strong that she looked older than her age. Her long legs nearly
reached the floor, her hands were folded in her lap, and she stared
through the window, lost in happy day-dreams. Mildred was the beauty of
the school, and as the love of all that is sweet, and bright, and lovely
is natural to girlhood, her companions placed her on a pedestal on that
account, and treated her with special marks of favour. Eva Murray, who
was sentimental, was accustomed to declare that Mildred was exactly like
a Norse princess, and when Blanche Green, who was practical, asked what
a Norse princess was like, she replied that she had never met one in
real life, but had seen many in picture galleries, that they always had
grey eyes and golden hair, and looked strong and kind and fearless, but
also as if they could be awfully disagreeable if they liked,--which
settled the question once for all, for everyone agreed that the
description suited Mildred to a T.
"What am I going to do?" repeated the Norse princess cheerily. "Why,
nothing at all in the way you mean. We never go away, either to the
country or the sea-side, or have picnics, or parties, or any excitements
of that kind. We just stay quietly at home and go on with the usual
work, but I am with Mother, you know--that's my holiday! You have never
seen her, you girls; I wish you had, for she is quite different to other
peoples' mothers. She is only twenty years older than I am, to begin
with, and she is awfully pretty. She is a tiny little thing, with dark
eyes, and soft brown hair. She comes to meet me at the station in a
sailor hat, and a little blue jacket, looking like a big school-girl
herself. I'm so proud of her! Last time I went home I took her up in
my arms and carried her across the room. She kicked like anything and
said, `You disrespectful child! How dare you! Put me down this
instant!' but she wasn't really angry a bit, and we both tumbled over on
to the sofa, and laughed till we cried. We do enjoy ourselves so much
when we get together--Mother and I. She is lonely when I am away, poor
dear, with no one to speak to but the children, so we make up for it in
the holidays. I sit up to supper every night, and we have coffee, and
hot buttered toast, and all sorts of good things that are bad for us,
and in the daytime we bribe the elder children with pennies to amuse the
younger ones, so that we may have the room to ourselves, and talk of the
good times we shall have when my schooling is over, and I go home to
stay!"
The girls gazed at Mildred as she spoke, with a mingling of envy and
compassion. Envy,--because her intense delight in the mere prospect of
being at home made them conscious of their own selfishness in regarding
the holidays as a period when parents should occupy themselves in
providing amusement for their families;--compassion,--because it was
well known that Mrs Moore was a widow, and so poor that she could not
afford to leave the country house where she lived with her half-dozen
noisy youngsters. Mildred had been sent to a good boarding-school so
that she might be able to teach her little brother and sisters in due
time, and the other girls were specially pitiful over this prospect.
Mary Nicoll referred to the subject now with questionable taste.
"But it won't be much fun, Mildred, if you have to teach all day long.
You won't be able to go about as you like, or have any time free except
in the evenings. And fancy having to go over all the wretched old
lessons again, and to drill tables and dates, and latitudes and
longitudes into the brains of a lot of stupid children. It will be
worse than being at school."
"Our children are not stupid. They are as sharp as needles, and I don't
think it will be dull at all. It will be fun to have the positions
reversed, and to do none of the work and all the fault-finding. I shall
bully them fearfully. Can't you imagine me--very proper and stiff, hair
done up--sitting at the head of the table tapping with a lead pencil...
`At-tention to the board! ... Shoulders back, young ladies, if you
please! Your deportment leaves much to be desired! ... My dear, good
child, how can you be so stupid! You try my patience to the
uttermost!'"
Mildred accompanied these remarks with contortions of the face and body
in imitation of the different teachers at Milvern House, and the bursts
of laughter with which they were greeted showed how real were her powers
of mimicry. She joined in the laughter herself, then suddenly breaking
off, clasped her hands together, and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy of
anticipation.
"This time to-morrow--oh! I shall be driving home from the station. We
shall have passed the village cross, and the almshouses, and turned the
corner by the farm. The children will be swarming out of the gate--the
table will be laid for tea, with a bowl of roses in the middle--oh!--and
strawberries--oh!--and real, true, thick, country cream. To-morrow! I
can't believe it. I don't think I ever wanted to go home so badly
before. The term from Christmas to midsummer seems so awfully long when
you don't go away for Easter. I shan't sleep a wink to-night, I am so
excited. I don't think I can lie down at all."
The girls were so absorbed in their conversation that they had not heard
the door open during Mildred's last speech, and the new comer had thus
an opportunity of listening undisturbed. She was a tall, slight young
lady, with dark hair, and the sweetest brown eyes that were ever seen.
She wore a black dress, and white collar and cuffs, and looked as if she
were trying her best to appear old and dignified, and not succeeding so
well as she would have wished. This was Miss Margaret, the younger of
the two lady principals, familiarly known among the girls as "Mardie",
because she was "such a darling" that it was impossible to address her
by an ordinary, stiff, school-mistressy title. This afternoon, however,
Mardie's eyes were not so serene as usual, and her face clouded over in
a noticeable manner as she listened to Mildred's rhapsodies.
"Mildred, dear," she said, coming forward and laying her hand on the
girl's shoulder. "I want you in my room for a few minutes. I won't
keep you long. There is something--"
"You want to say to me! Oh, Mardie, I can guess. I have left my
slippers in the middle of the floor, and thrown my clothes all over the
room. I know--I know quite well, but it's the last day--I can't be prim
and tidy on the last day. It's not in human nature!" Mildred took hold
of Miss Margaret by the arm, and rubbed her curly head against her
shoulder in a pretty, kitten-like manner. "To-morrow morning you will
be rid of us altogether, and then--"
"But it is not about your room, Mildred. Come dear--come with me. I
really want you."
"I'm ready then!" The girl slipped lightly to the ground, and turned to
follow Miss Margaret from the room. "You make me quite curious, Mardie.
Whatever can it be?"